Saturday, March 9, 2013

Bradly Manning should not be in prison,
and if Obama was actually the caring, loving, person his followers
claim he is, a full presidential pardon would have been issued years
ago.

When I made a statement like this to a
co-worker, my co-workers response was something like “well, Obama
does not have the power you think he does”. I have to call bullshit
on this, first off the president can pardon anyone. Then my co-worker
said something to the effect of “Manning may have broke the
uniform code of military justice” as if this makes it more
difficult to pardon Manning. I simply cannot believe the cognitive
dissonance some people have when it comes to Obama. We were both in
agreement that Manning is not a criminal that should be in prison,
and yet he refused to believe that the commander and chief of US
military did not have the ability to pardon a military prisoner, when
this is one of the powers of the presidency that has been long
standing and should be common knowledge to even the most braindead
Obama supporter. People if Obama cared about Manning, or any other
political prisoners he would grant them pardons.

I had a conversation the other day and I was told that it was the free market
that created the housing bubble. This idea is so patently false I
cannot believe anyone believes it. I don't need to know the minutia
of what regulations were repealed or changed leading to what missteps
by what banks to know that the root of the housing bubble was the
government and the federal reserve.

I think everyone can agree that the
housing bubble and subsequent crash was caused by people buying
houses they really could not afford by getting loans for them, and when the housing prices dropped they
went underwater and defaulted on their loans. They were led on by low interest rates and easy access to money for their houses.

In a free market the only money that can be loaned out, is money another party has saved and made available to loan. During the housing bubble savings rates were at a low, debt was at a high. This is a situation that can only occur in an artificial situation where the amount of money available for loans has no connection to the amount of savings available to be loaned out. This situation can only be created by the government. In a free market when savings rates are low interest rates are high, and when savings rates are high interest rates are low, in the years leading to housing bubble the opposite was occurring and this is just not possible in a free market. Therefor the only conclusion to be made is that the housing bubble was caused by the government and the federal reserve and not the free market. I can draw this conclusion without knowing what regulations were changed by the congress, what programs George Bush wanted, etc.